XVI

Colonel Johnson looked at his watch.

“Nothing much more that I can do here. You’ve got things well in hand, Sugden. Oh, just one

thing. We ought to see the butler fellow. I know you’ve questioned him, but we know a bit more

about things now. It’s important to get confirmation¹ of just where everybody says he was at the

time of the murder.”

Tressilian came in slowly. The chief constable² told him to sit down.

“Thank you, sir. I will, if you don’t mind. I’ve been feeling very queer—very queer indeed.

My legs, sir, and my head.”

Poirot said gently: “You have had the shock, yes.”

The butler shuddered³. “Such — such a violent thing to happen. In this house! Where

everything has always gone on so quietly.”

Poirot said:

“It was a well-ordered house, yes? But not a happy one?”

“I wouldn’t like to say that, sir.”

“In the old days when all the family was at home, it was happy then?”

Tressilian said slowly:

“It wasn’t perhaps what one would call very harmonious⁴, sir.”

“The late Mrs. Lee was somewhat of an invalid⁵, was she not?”

“Yes, sir, very poorly she was.”

“Were her children fond of her?”

“Mr. David, he was devoted⁶ to her. More like a daughter than a son. And after she died he

broke away, couldn’t face living here any longer.”

Poirot said: “And Mr. Harry⁷? What was he like?”

“Always rather a wild young gentleman, sir, but good-hearted. Oh, dear, gave me quite a

turn, it did, when the bell rang—and then again, so impatient like, and I opened the door and there

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